As the sun is going down early, you may be looking to brighten things up a bit. We decided to have a lantern festival to perk up our November. It may just turn into a tradition!

The lantern festival is based on the story of St. Martin of Lourds, a soldier who gave half of his coat to a beggar. He then had a dream that people carrying lanterns at night, led him to Jesus, who wore the other half of his coat.

We learned 2 songs, the first one, a long time favorite, “this little light of mine”. The next one song took a little more research, but eventually we found and learned “I go with my little lantern“.

We read many different stories, our favorite is the story of St. Martin found in the Christopherus curriculum, grade 1. We also enjoyed the lantern story by Reg Down in his festival of stones book. His book has been a great resource for stories that cover various celebrations through the year. His stories are very captivating and imaginative with many fun creatures like fairies and mice (We own 3 of his books, and read them over and over). We also read about the rest of St. Martin’s life in Saints tell their stories (get it from the library, it is only 2 pages out of the whole book). Another story we enjoyed was Hugen’s lantern in Tell me a story, a Waldorf collection of stories.

The kids have each made their lanterns for our party.

It was amazing to watch them spontaneously break out into song as they worked. They sang “I go with my bright little lantern” together, it was definitely a “homeschooling mom payday”!

We also made tiny lantern carrying peg dolls, which the kids play with, and I use to tell stories.

We have also been reading about Moses and the burning bush, which is a loose tie-in, but they have not seemed to notice.

Next weekend we will be hosting around 20 kids, who will arrive with lanterns ready to show off and a lantern festival themed snack to share. What is a lantern themed snack you may ask? (You aren’t the only one to ask, don’t worry!) We will be making lemon meringue tartlets to share, pineapple slices, lemon bars, orange slices, morning glory muffins, anything yellow, orange, sun or light related will be a delightful addition.

We will carry our lanterns around the block and sing our songs, light some candles then share a snack.